Jean-Marcel St. Jacques (philosopher/sculptor/hoodoo) is a self-taught artist who traces his ancestors back to the first slave ships to enter Louisiana. His family fled Louisiana in 1970 to escape racial oppression. He returned a year before Katrina and purchased a home in New Orleans to reconnect with the land of his ancestors.

St. Jacques currently makes art with wood salvaged from his Katrina-damaged home in the Tremé neighborhood, and masks as a Medicine Man in the Black Masking Indian tradition. His art is in the permanent collections of the American Folk Art Museum, The Alexandria Museum of Art, and in the homes of thousands of art-lovers worldwide.